Mekakushi Neighbor
by artsybeanpole
Summary: Mary moves to the city a little early, and her neighbors are far from what she had expected.
1. everywhere she goes, she is always gone

Mary had stood outside of a ratty little apartment complex, a singular little silver key in her hands, and a worn suitcase nearly as tall as her like a solid wall at her shoulder's.

Even now, she had no idea what she was doing, standing outside of rows and rows of buildings and streets she had never seen in her life, and the sweat on her hands turned her fingers cold, with the ever pressing weight of metal in her palm.

She marched up the stairs, the top of her nose red from cold, the little belongings rattling inside the case, with eyes with desperation and half-made decisions.

Mary jerked upwards, and the wheel got caught in the slip of the top step, and no matter how much she pulled and tugged, it refused to go along with her grip.

Her scarf was too suffocating, her new, cheap boots felt too clunky, her forehead was hot, and all the white hair flying into her eyes with each tug and push made her want to scream and cry and run away from it all. Mother should have been here. Mother would have-

The tears were already hot and pooling at the bottom of her eyelids, and all it took was a blink, and that was it. The silver of the key glinted briefly in the white of the cheap fluorescent lights of complex before tumbling to the bottom of the steps, a gray and white blur at the bottom of the pavement, and the tears only flowed faster.

"Mom.." she wailed into the night, high and trembling, and she wanted, more than anything, to rip off all of the jackets restricting her and throw them all away and go back to the warmth of her mother's arms. "Come back..."

The shadow of black sneakers stood in front of her, with her suitcase next to them and a small silver key on the other. They knelt down, gently, in front of her swirling vision, and handed them the key, the metal glinting white into her tears. "Is this your's?"

A man, she heard, and she snatched the key back, scrambling backwards, tripping on the back of her jacket. "Get away...!" Her voice was high, and trembling with fear, she knew, and knew that he probably knew it too. The figure paused, breathing white clouds into the night air, and smiled, under the cold white of the apartment lights. "Ok."

She watched him, warily, as he stood and fumbled at the door, a similar looking key inserting into the handle and then entering into a warm clammor. "Well," he paused at the door to look at her, and she flinched and looked away, holding her key closer to her body. "Goodnight."

He had given her a brief nod, and the door had shut, gray and tall, and she sat there, huddled close, and stared at the suitcase standing at the edge of the stairs. Mary stood, slowly, and the clunky boots echoed as she took the handle and rolled off to the room next door.

She took the silver key and fumbled for the handle through thick gloves, the key seemingly glowing in the light. _"Ok."_ His smile was a little regretful, she thought, and tried to fit the key into the hole. It slipped, and Mary tugged off her gloves with some difficulty, and suddenly missed the warmth that had glowed from behind that door.

" _Well," he said, as if considering something, "Goodnight."_ She ached for it, and then that gray door had closed, in her mind, slowly, until the warm light was merely a slit in her memory. Her fingers, cold with the sweat from earlier, slipped at the keyhole again, and the key clattered to the floor, and it was only as she went to bend over and pick it up under those cold apartment lights, that she felt the tears heavy in her eyes again.

The shadow over the silver key knelt down and cried, silently and as bitterly than she ever had, even after a week ago, when she had seen her mother with spatters of red on her dress and the door wide open. She hiccuped and the tears slipped down fast on her cheeks, with the little silver key at her feet, and wished she could run back to her old house and it would all be fine again.

The warmth flooded her, almost blindingly, and a pair of black sneakers stood, casting long shadows over her crouching figure. "You're still out here?" He sounded a little surprised, and she looked up, and they saw the tears streaking down her face.

They knelt down again, and Mary almost reached into that warmth, but she kept her hands close to her. The big hands picked up the silver key and held it out once more. She looked up, and he smiled, bright and warm as summer, and said, "You seem to keep dropping things, huh."

Her eyes were watering again, and she flusteredly hid her face behind the scarf, averting her pink eyes. "S-sorry," she apologized, softly, and rubbed the cloth hurriedly against her eye before taking it. He stood again, and re-wrapped his own scarf. "No problem. Need help with the door, too?"

He was only teasing, but the heightened confusion in her eyes told otherwise. He sighed, and she flinched. "Sorry," she said again, and he smiled and shook his head. "Nothing to be sorry about. Here, I'll show you."

The key was warm in her hand when he had given it back, and he had waved at her before the door closed again, hiding him and the warmth of it's residents.

She stepped inside, and it was empty. The door closed with a resolute click, and she fell asleep, there and then, at the doorway, and dreamed of his black sneakers and his warm smile.


	2. everywhere she goes,she wants to see you

_"Do you have any new friends at your new school, yet, Mary?"_

 _It had been one month into the school year, and her mother smiled at her warmly as she placed down a cup of hot chocolate for Mary, and a steaming one of chamomile for herself. Mary bit her lip, and thought of her desk, the messages, the pushing, the teasing, the tugging of her white hair. She raised the cup to her lips, and lied, "It's fine."_

 _Her mother raised her eyebrows, and she placed the cup down on the glass table, staring at her daughter worriedly. Mary could sense the questions about to come out of her lips, and hurriedly added, "Really! I-in fact-" she hesitated, then boldly stated, "I'm going to hang out with them after school today!"_

 _Her mother looked pleasantly surprised, and she picked up her mug again. "Are they coming to our house?" Mary shook her head, and, catching onto the idea, said, brightly, "No, we're just going to play a little after school, on the playground."_

 _She smiled, clearly relieved the bullying hadn't started up again, and Mary had to hide her face behind her already empty cup. The drink was cold against her lips. "Well," her mother had said, cheerfully, clapping her hands together, "We'll have to make some cookies for them, and to commemorate your first friend in school!" Mary bit her tongue, and plastered on a smile. "Yeah!"_

 _The cookies were on the floor, stepped on into little smears and crumbs scattering the tiled floor, and she had screamed, and cried, "Those were my cookies, my mommy made them for me, stop it, stop it," and they had laughed and taunted her, "Your ugly monster mom? Better not eat them, she probably poisoned them," rubbing their feet in and stomping and jumping on the cookies her mother and her had made that morning, laughing as they pulled it out of the hot oven._

 _That was the last memory that she had of them together, until she had seen the door wide open, and her mom was dead on the floor with the oven still on._

 _The cookies were burnt._

When Mary woke, her toes were cramped from keeping the boots on all night, and her fingers faintly burned from the heat of the cookies when she had pulled them out, nibbling along the charred edges numbly, determined to enjoy their final memories together.

 _"Those were my cookies, my mommy made them for me-"_ She shut her eyes tight, shut out the memories, but they kept coming back, and

 _"stop it, stop it,"_ _she sobbed, and they stomped harder, her mother's cookies smeared on the bottoms of her classmate's shoes as they ran away, cackling_

the tears were stinging her eyes again, and they slid down, silently, numbly, holding her knees close to her chest. The suitcase stood solidly next to her, and she leaned on it, the tears sliding over her nose, and tickling her hair, warm against her cheeks in the morning air. Her heart ached as if it were going to burst, and she shut her eyes tight, and pretended that it was all a story, and it was going to better soon, her mother soothed, and then there was a happy ever after. "I miss you..."

...

Mary couldn't bring it in herself to get up, but she did, and though her heart ached painfully in her chest, she was too tired to cry anymore- too tired of running, too tired of crying, too tired of all this death, all this hate. Her fingers fumbled to open the door, and she pulled it open, rubbing her tear-tired eyes in the thin morning light.

The cold white lights were gone, thankfully, and the cars were sparse at this hour. She looked to the left, towards the staircase, and was reminded of the gray door next to her. The lights were off, now, and she wondered if a pair of black sneakers laid behind those doors.

After a minute of pacing, she knocked, her heart racing, and waited. They weren't here, she thought, partly in relief, and partly in disappointment, and was about to sneak off when there was the sound of footsteps behind the door, and then the door swung open, revealing a half naked blond boy with a toothbrush in his right hand.

Mary shrieked (it was _that_ half that was naked), and so did the blond, quickly tugging his undershirt downwards, nearly dropping his toothbrush. "Holy shi- SETO!"

The blond boy turned to a figure in the kitchen, and he called, pouring a cup of black coffee into a green cup, "Yeah?"

When he turned, the green cup crashed to the floor, the blond was hurried upstairs with a pair of dirty pants thrown in his face, and a breathless raven head, red-faced and thoroughly embarrassed, apologized, "I'm very sorry about that, Kano is...uh...not used to girls, answering the door. We don't have a lot of neighbors, you see," and then, a very quick, "Please don't report us to the police."

Mary was still covering her face, and she stammered, timidly, "I-Is it over yet?" He stared at her for a long while, then burst out laughing. Mary's face turned even redder, and she stammered, trying to collect her thoughts, "U-um, I'm sorry, but does anyone own black sneakers in this house?"

He looked surprised at her question, then, he snapped his fingers, and his hand closed gently around her wrists, pulling it away from her face. "I got it!" His face brightened, and he grinned at her, warmly. "You're that girl from yesterday!"

Mary was reminded of the image of her sobbing dramatically over a silver key like a sad drunk while he had to unlock the door for her because her hands were trembling too much.

"Er, yes." He flashed another smile at her, and she sensed no hidden meaning behind it, and the shame made the bright red extend to her ears. "Don't worry, I won't bring it up again. Are you ok?" This last part he said softer, concern faintly intertwined in his words.

His eyes were a molten gold, and she had to look away, her past recollections of human nature and his golden eyes and summery smiles warring in her ribcage. "I-I'm fine," she managed, a little more clipped than she had meant to say it, and his face fell a little. Ignoring the pang of guilt, she shoved a bag of store-bought cookies that she had gotten yesterday, and stammered, looking down at her feet, "I just wanted to say hello to my new neighbors, and this is thanks for yesterday, so bye!"

She said this all very quickly, turning heel and nearly running back to her front door, covering her red face, and her eyes were stinging again. He called out to her but she didn't hear it, slamming the gray door behind her before she could change her mind.

She slid down the back of the door, and sighed into her hands, her heart jumping up and down like a rabbit in her chest. Mary didn't have to look into a mirror to see her entire face looked like it had been sunburned, and she touched her cheek- it was burning up. She groaned, and rolled on the floor, and wanted to hurry up and take a shower, but the only things inside the suitcase were a pile of fairytale books and a packet of burnt cookies.

She unsealed the bag and ate one, and remembering the concerned look in those golden eyes made her heart ache. _"Are you ok?"_ The warmth of his hands...

She took a large bite, ignoring the bitter taste crunching her mouth, and chided herself, " _He's a human, don't expect too much, he'll hurt you too one day, like when they opened the door and hit your mother over and over again and spilled her cookies that she made for them and stomped on them even though you told them to stop-"_

She stuffed the rest of the cookie in her mouth, the brittle black sound loud in her ears, and tucked her knees into her arms, closing her eyes, and the last thing reminded herself that she should get ahold of her senses: humans had killed her mother, and wasn't that enough reason to be afraid?

She repeated it again and again until her heart began to ache again, and she laid against the suitcase, the sunlight streaming out of the window, birds twittering brightly in the blue sky, and suddenly the sight of that half-naked boy at the door flashed across her mind.

Humans were terrifying.

A/N: Mary's first impressions of men: either they answer the door half naked or they pick up your keys when you're crying like a sad drunk. I have high hopes for all of their futures. The creation of Mary's BL dreams should be included in here lmao soon enough she'll ask what 2 half-naked men are doing in the same apartment wink wonk


	3. everywhere she goes, she needs towels

It was only when Mary had turned the shower knob and stepped out of the shower that she realized that she didn't have any towels, and secondly, she had no clean clothes to wear.

Steam puffed out of the bathroom door as she peered at the clothes she had shed on the floor just 10 minutes ago, and wondered, desperately, on what to do. The bathroom was too small for her to change in, and she didn't know where the laundry was, either. Suddenly, she realized exactly how little she had planned this entire thing out, and grimaced at the floor, the rumpled dress staring back up at her.

She hesitated, then picked up the clothes, trying not to hold them too close to her body (they were dirty, after all), and scooted, naked, to the window, to close the blinds. _Slowly, slowly—_ she watched the window as she moved along the walls, trying not to be seen, and had reached out, with one hand, to close the blinds, when her wet feet had slipped on a stray book on the floor and she fell, hard, on the wooden floor with a shriek, the clothes flying out of her hands.

Her head had hit directly on the wood, and the 'slam' threw her vision backwards, the afterimages of the ceiling swaying as her hands shot to touch her damp head. She forced herself to sit up, and her head throbbed dangerously, searching for a flash of dirty pink. Her hands patted for a hint of cloth, and then the door swung open.

"Hello? I heard someone yell—woaaaah I'm sorry-" Mary screamed, and her hands flung out to cover her chest, and the blond boy quickly covered his eyes with his hands, and was about to close the door when Mary stammered, recovering, "U-u-um, can you get me a towel?" The blond boy paused, turning his head toward her, one hand over his eyes and the other on the doorknob. "Don't you have any towels there?" Mary bit her lips, and reddened, her hands tightening over her chest. "S-sorry, I was, uh, not too well-planned out…"

The blond laughed, despite the situation, and Mary's cheeks turned pink. "J-just hurry!" she pleaded, and he chuckled, and tromped off to his apartment, giving her a brief wave. "Don't worry about it~ I'll be back soon!"

He left the door open, and Mary grabbed for the dress, taking the time to calm down, pressing the cloth close to her chest. These humans, they were really… she shook her damp curls, and water sprayed on the wood, in hopes of dying down the fire on her cheeks. She couldn't believe it took lying on the floor naked because she had slipped to get something as simple as towels.

What would her mother think, seeing her sprawled, in a place where she didn't even know where the laundry was, and with a man already seeing her naked because she had nearly died?

The answer hurt too much, and she blinked back tears. _Don't cry, don't cry,_ the voice soothed, and she didn't know if it was her mother's voice or her own. _It'll be ok._ She buried her face in the dirty dress, her breath coming in short, the tears were coming again—

Something soft and fluffy landed on her head, and the blond grinned, cat-like, at her from the entrance. "Here it is, neighbor." The girl had looked up at him, and tears slid down her cheeks, her face surprised. He paused at the door knob, and she sniffed, her eyes red, "Thank you…"

He sighed and smiled a little, and thought of the raven head's words as he closed the door thoughtfully last night—"We have an interesting new neighbor, Kano," and then he could not prod anything more out of him, no matter how much his red eyes flashed. "What a crybaby." He closed the door gently, and crouched in front of her, taking the towel off of her head, and pulled up a chair next to the bathroom, Mary watching him warily the whole time, her hands trembling as they held the dress.

He patted the chair, and Mary's eyes moved from the chair to him, slightly narrowed in fear. He curiously took a step closer, and she flinched away. "I can do this myself," she stammered, her voice shaking in fright, her eyes darting away, "so please—" He took another step closer, and closely observed her eyes, which almost seemed to glow faintly red. Her shoulders were shaking, and his eyes flashed red, and he smiled at her. "Just sit down," he soothed her, an amused smile playing along his lips. "I'm just going to dry your hair."

Mary's eyes flashed uncertainly, and she quickly stood up, nearly ran to the chair, and re-covered herself, her ears pink. The boy accidently slipped out a chuckle through his façade, and her face turned pink again. "P-please just hurry up!" He nodded airily, and shuffled through the bottom drawer until he pulled out a hair dryer, and threw the towel at Mary as he plugged it in. "Wrap yourself in this," he commanded, and she did so obediently. When he exited with the hair dryer in hand, she eyed it apprehensively as if it were some kind of weapon. "W-what does that do?" He grinned, and pointed the dryer at her. "Bang bang!"

Mary's eyes were definitely glowing red, now, and the blonde's smile widened. He quickly swapped it out with a teasing grin, and said, "Nahhh, just kidding. This is a hair-dryer."

The girl tilted her head, water dripping to the floor in little glimmering drops. "Hair dryer?" He briefly wondered for how long this girl had been sheltered, and considered teaching her. He smiled innocently—he would enjoy this while Seto wasn't here to stop him, he decided mischievously—and nodded, waving the handle in his hand seriously. "Yeah, it, uh—" he took a glance at the girl's wide eyes, and, an idea popping into his head, "it makes your hair dry if you flip this switch—" he pointed to the on button, "but it you're not trained in the art, it'll…hm… shoot you in the head!"

To emphasize this point, he pointed the dryer end at her head, and Mary squeaked, nearly falling off her chair, clutching the towel close to her chest. "B-but then," she stammered, her eyes wide with worry, "what about you?" Kano gave her a gaudy smile, and flicked the 'on' switch; a terrified Mary crying out a "No!" before the dryer whirred on passively in the empty room.

" _I'm_ fine because I've mastered the art," he assured her, standing behind the chair, and Mary let out a relieved sigh, and he took ahold of a handful of Mary's long hair in his hands, studying it with a kind of mild incredulity—how much hair did she _have?_ He hummed as he worked, and Mary seemed unnaturally stiff in the chair, and while she couldn't see his face, he thought.

She had red eyes. Kano's eyes, as much as they fooled others, did not fool him. The thin white locks threaded between his fingers as he held the dryer in the other hand, separating it into sections so he wouldn't get lost. He studied the suitcase lying open on the floor, and the scarce contents: thick books, with childish drawings, and small packet of some material. Drugs? The girl fidgeted nervously under his care, and he dismissed the idea immediately. If she didn't know what a hair dryer was, or even how to pack a bag—she had even forgotten fresh clothes, he observed with mild amusement, that much he had figured out when he opened the door—there was a low probability she was doing anything like that. Then, what was she?

"Do humans like hair?" The dryer paused in his hand, and he asked, keeping his voice light and amused, "Why?" Mary shifted around, nervously, and her voice softened. "Do humans…like to tug hair?" Kano laughed, and moved on to the next section, carefully analyzing her words. "With hair this soft, they probably would want to."

Mary's head moved to the window, and Kano wondered what her face looked like then. "I see…" She was silent for a long while, and the room was quiet outside of the hum of the dryer and the occasional rustling of the towel. Mary's mouth opened again, and her voice was shy again. "Thank you. I really appreciate you teaching me all these things, sir."

If Kano had a pang of guilt, it was gone with flash of red pupils. He laughed light-heartedly, and shut off the dryer, letting the last of the hair fall to the ground. "Just call me Master Kano. If you ever need any towels again, just knock. Not naked, though, of course." He laughed at his own joke, and felt somewhat accomplished when the girl let out a slight giggle as well.

She turned to face him, white tumbling around her thin shoulders, and her eyes truly were beautiful, rosy and honest and solemn with respect, "Thank you." Kano smiled back, and tucked his hands into his pockets. 'Definitely not drugs,' he decided, and nodded back, heading for the door. "No problem. Oh," he turned, halfway out the door, and Mary looked up inquisitively.

Kano paused, then grinned, cat-like. "Tomorrow, stop by. Seto said he'd like to shop for some clothes for you. You need it, right?"

Mary's eyes widened, and she nodded gratefully, with a remarkable likeness to a lamb. "O-of course! Thank you, Master Kano!"

Kano's self-important grin widened with this title, and he pulled on his hood, a flash of black and white against the blue sky. "Anything for…what's your name?"

Mary hesitated, then, her hands resolutely tightening around the towel for reassurance, "M…Mary!"

"Mary," he said, thoughtfully, and Mary's heart pounded in her chest, behind the white of the towel. Had she really done the right thing? Trusting a human? He turned back, and flashed her a final grin before turning with a swift turn of brown soles, and his hand briefly waved at her before his voice faded around the corner. "Tomorrow, at 3 PM!" Mary nodded eagerly, though he couldn't see it, and pulled on her dirty dress, excited. New clothes, at last! No need to figure out what she had to wear, at least.

Kano rounded the corner, and cackled quietly to himself before opening the apartment door. His favorite green-haired danchou and that innocent raven head looked up as he strode in, hanging his jacket on the hook by the door. "Hey, Seto," he drawled, a sly grin playing along the corners of his mouth, "I want you to do something for me."

A/N: me when writing hair drying scene: kinky. I'd like to think that Kano and Mary get along well the way that I want Shintaro and Kano to get along well the way that I want Hibiya to get along with everyone because I want everyone to be happy and have S and M (remember that one story) and have those kinds of moments together. For me, it's expressing those moments by Kano and Mary casually having a conversation after having her nearly fall and die on the floor and talking about how to master the art of hairdrying.


	4. everywhere she goes, he is on a mission

"U-um, how is it?"

"Really nice!"

Seto had given the outfit a thumbs-up, his hands over his eyes with Mary in the changing room, various clothing choices tossed, rejected, on the floor. Mary looked up, her rosy eyes flickering nervously up at the raven head, giving the XXXL black and red rock band shirt a twirl. "Are you sure? This dress feels a little off…" Seto's cheeks flushed, and he averted his eyes, the hands tightening over his line of vision. "M-mhm!"

Kido sighed in the corner, and Mary hesitantly threw it into the reject pile. She had come along to make sure that Kano's plan didn't have anything shady to hurt their new neighbor, and now she had been stuck in the same locked stall with a small albino girl who needed new clothes, a blushing raven-headed virgin who also sorely needed new clothes giving clothing advice that was always, "That looks great!" with his eyes closed, and then there was _her,_ with her excess of long sleeves and turtlenecks and sweaters, for maybe 2 hours now, because that yellow-haired bastard had decided that the best way to fix hopeless situation was by turning it into a more hopeless situation by locking the door disguised as an 'employee.'

She picked up a skirt at random from the pile, and, after giving a quick glance at the two of them, held it to her waist experimentally, discreetly tucking her hair behind her ear in the mirror. _No, the cloth was far shorter than she had imagined…_ Mary had paused in her twirling, and Kido had picked up a bra—a _lacy_ bra, of all things, that must have been Kano—and Mary seemed to have stopped in her twirling and poked the straps (that was literally all it was, _straps)_ and creased her eyebrows together. "U-um, Kido-san, what's this?"

Kido threw it to the other side of the room as if it were fire and, red-faced, pulled a shirt at random from the pile. "U-um, why don't you try this on?" she said, lamely, shoving it in front of her face, and Mary frowned a little, and pushed it against Kido's torso, then beamed at her. "Kido-san, you should try it on! I'm sure it'll look really cute on you!" Mary pulled along a blushing, stammering Kido, and pulled the shirt over her sweater, and Seto peeked through his fingers.

" _Not. A. Word,"_ she hissed through her teeth, tugging down the red and black rock band shirt. Seto nodded grimly, and pulled out his phone and took a picture, wordlessly, and Kido chased after him in the room, shedding the shirt, her whole face a furious red. Mary rifled through the pile of clothes, pulling out lacy bras at random. Really, what _were_ these things? She experimentally hooked it on as Kido finished strangling Seto.

"Is this how it works?" Mary had looked up, nervously, the bra hooked decoratively around her head. Seto's entire body turned red, and he stammered, quickly averting his eyes, "I-i-i-it l-looks very—" Kido shoved his hood over his eyes and unhooked the bra from around Mary's head with a sigh, and a voice from outside, muffled, commented with a cat-like grin she could feel, "Don't corrupt poor Seto, Mary dear, I don't think he even knows where a bra's supposed to go yet." Kido gritted her teeth, and promised to herself she would kill him when they got out, and hide his body in a hole with all of the lacy bras he had planted in that pile.

"Sorry, is it boring?" Kido looked up, and the albino girl's rosy eyes glimmered worriedly in front of her. Kido managed a small smile and ruffled her white head. "No, it's fine," she lied, then, looking at the pile of clothes and the violently red Seto lying next to the door, added, "I'm having fun, too. Don't worry about it." That was a lie too. She wondered if Kano was getting to her.

The girl looked relieved and nodded, her fluffy white head bobbing down before flashing her a bright, shy smile. "I didn't want to force anyone into it, so I wasn't sure if you were ok or not, but I guess it's all fine now." Kido stared at the pile of clothes in the corner, and walked back, re-energized. "Don't worry about it," she reassured Mary, and crouched by the pile. "We'll find something soon enough."

…

" _She doesn't have any new clothes?"_

 _Seto's golden eyes looked up at him from the rim of his (replaced) green coffee cup, and leaned back in his chair, thoughtfully. "And you asked me to accompany her," he confirmed, and Kano grinned from behind the counter, raising his cup. "See, you can figure things out after all."_

" _Why?" Kano jumped, and the voice behind him revealed the green haired girl, the red turtle neck pulled up over her face, and the solid black pupils eyed him suspiciously. "This isn't like you."_

 _Kano shrugged his shoulders, his signature cat-like grin flickering upon his lips before raising the cup again. "What, is it strange that I want to help out our new neighbor?" Kido was silent, and she sat down, pouring a cup for herself as well. The two watched her as she poured in the 3 creams and 1 sugar, and then slid the cup away from her. "I'm coming, too," she announced, finally, and Kano's grin widened. He elbowed Seto across the table. "Hey, your date is going to have a little more people than planned, Seto. You disappointed?"_

 _Seto shook his head and smiled. "This is good- she can get used to humans easier." Kano watched his face from behind his cup, and wondered how much he knew. "Well, then," he said, pulling his jacket off of the hook next to the door. "It's nearly 3. Shall we pay our new neighbor a little visit?"_

…

Kano was waiting outside of the door, and smiled to himself.

Red eyes, he thought, and pretended to pick at his fingernails as customers came and went, the door opening and closing ever so often. It was a good role, playing the bored employee, and he was enjoying it tremendously. His fingers tapped at the bottom of the phone, and a live feed of the changing room went in.

He was aware that he was breaking a number of laws, right now, but it hardly mattered because one: he had already seen Mary and Kido (sometimes unscathed, sometimes not) and Seto naked before, and two: they were doing a recruit mission right now, whether they were aware of it or not.

He studied Mary's delicate face, flustered as Kido pulled out a blue dress, maybe a little long, but she seemed to love it from the second she saw it. "Red eyes," he murmured, and his fingers paused at the home button. The edges of his lips twitched upwards, and he stretched out on his perch, hopping downwards, and strolled to the locked room, key in hand.

He stepped in, and his eyes flitted from the red Seto on the floor at the doorway to Kido helping Mary pull on the dress. A lacy bra hit him, harder than any lacy bra should be able to hit someone, in the face, and Kido dragged Mary and Seto out of the door in one hand, and the other hand shot out and grabbed at Kano's collar, tight.

"You," Kido snarled, "are going to die today."

Kano laughed care freely, and let Kido drag all of them past the cashier, the sliding door, and to their apartment. He watched the bewildered Mary and Seto on the other side, and chuckled to himself.

Mission success.


	5. everywhere she goes, she cries

_"i want mommy back i miss her they pulled her hair they took the cookies my mommy made for me for them and they left her on the floor"_

He sat at the end of the railing of the staircase, and raised his head to the sky, delicate clouds of white breath dissolving in the night air.

His new neighbor was crying at the top of the stairs, and her thoughts flooded in bursts of red spattered on a pink shawl, crumbs smeared on shoes, childish scrawls on a desk when she walked in the classroom, pink hair being tugged and pulled and snipped away, floating down in little white strands, and tears. Tears in the pillow, tears while she sat, alone, in the classroom, eating a stepped on lunch because she had nothing else, tears when her mother laid, dead, on a marble tiled floor, tears when a silver key glinted in the moonlight as it clattered down the stairs.

Seto could hear them falling on the pavement; he could feel every little drop wet the white with dark little blots. He closed his eyes.

"Mom..." the trembling wail wavered down the stairs, weak and soft and shaking like the last of the leaves that clung to the trees above him, "Come back..."

That was all it took. He stood up, brushed off his pants, and bent down, holding the silver key under the trembling leaves of November, and walked up the stairs towards the crying girl with pale hair at the top, and pulled the suitcase out of the rut.

All she could see was his black sneakers, but he didn't mind. He crouched down, and the silver key shone white under the lights of that ratty apartment complex.

"Is this yours?"

...

Seto laid on his bed, and the sheets clung to his legs, wrapped up tight from his tossing and turning, cutting off his circulation. His head was bombarded by the thoughts of their new neighbor, and waited until the thoughts ceased and she fell asleep.

He turned to the red outline of digital numbers on the alarm clock: 2 AM, and he had work tomorrow too. Her thoughts had kept him awake and staring up at the ceiling at 2 AM, and he did some thinking of his own.

She wasn't human, that much he could tell. Her irises were too pink, her hair too white, her figure too frail to be outside a ratty apartment complex in the early hours of morning. But then, he considered, what about him and his siblings' red eyes?

He thought of the tears that slipped down her cheeks, the high trembling wail that had streamed down the stairs, the flashes of red spattered in little drops on a hand-knitted pink shawl. That was human. It was the most human part of anyone he knew.

He could feel, rather than hear, the tears that were always brimming at the edges of that girl's eyes even as she slept. The dreams were too muffled for him to hear, but the general outline was obvious.

 _"The cookies were burnt."_

He closed his eyes. The tears were falling again.

...

 _He had stepped inside, and sat down, waiting, and listening. The warm clamor as Kido hit Kano over the head with a ladle echoed, homely, from the kitchen. He didn't slip off his black sneakers just yet; he bided his time, his hand resting on the brass handle._

 _When he opened the door, the thoughts finally ceasing, he opened the door again, and the girl looked up, surprised, tears streaking down her face, and the silver key on the ground._

 _The slit of golden light illuminating her rosy eyes, he thought, then, was very beautiful, and he couldn't help but laugh as she flustered_ , _pink-cheeked, when he handed her the key._

 _"I'm sorry," her voice was soft, almost as soft as her rose-pink eyes, and perhaps that was when Seto's heart had begun to beat._

 _Her hands were cool in the night air, but the shock of warmth was all he felt when his fingers touched hers._

 _"No problem."_

 _…_

That was why he was surprised when she had knocked on their door, thankfully not by a half-naked Kano, though that was how he felt when she looked up at him with those rosy eyes and the new blue dress she had picked with Kido at the store a week ago.

"Um," she stammered, and she tucked a strand of white behind her ear nervously. "I-I was wondering… if you…um…" Her eyes almost seemed to be swirling with tears again, and her knuckles were white against the soft blue of the dress.

He disarmed her tears with a warm, encouraging smile, and waved her inside. "Breakfast, right?"

She nodded gratefully, and slipped off her shoes, the foot size small alongside his black converses and Kano's tall buckled boots. Somehow, the sight was somewhat homely. "Sorry about this," her voice cut through his thoughts, and she nervously sat at the counter, a small cup that she had picked out with Kido the other day, since she was coming so much, steaming in her hands. "I feel like I'm intruding a lot," she confessed, her eyes cast downwards in shame, her fingers stirring the cup's contents with a small spoon.

Seto, stunned, shook his head, and poured a cup of coffee to contrast to her tea. "No one minds," he assured her, and her fingers fidgeted nervously with the handle of the cup, and it was true. "Kano even bought some tea yesterday since you didn't seem to like coffee." This was a partial lie, while Kano _was_ the one who suggested this, but there was a difference between throwing that inside the cart and actually paying for it, and Kido was the one who had paid for it, "but only for Mary," she had stated firmly, and proceeded to throw out the R18 movies he had managed to toss in there as well.

"That's exactly what I _mean,"_ Mary had burst out, miserably, and the cute bunny decoration print on her cup shook when the chair rattled, the small albino girl standing, her hands on the table. Seto stared at her, stunned from the outburst, and her hands flinched from the table as if they had been burned.

Mary's fingers rubbed her arms, as if to calm herself down, and she sat back down, her pink eyes darting away when Seto tried to meet her's. "I'm sorry," she whispered, and Seto stood up. He walked to her side of the table, and she flinched, waiting to be hit.

He waited for her to look back up at him again, and pulled up a smile for her when she did, the rosy reds flickering uncertainly. He held out his hand, slowly enough to not frighten her, and her fingers twitched at her arms. His smile seemed to reassure her, and the pale fingers fit, thin and small, in his tanned hand.

He was careful when he pulled her up, as if the delicate china girl in his hands would break at any moment, and he pulled both of them out of the door, Mary had barely pulling on her own shoes before the crisp winter wind hit their faces.

"Alright!" A refreshing grin broke out onto Seto's face when the blue sky shone out at him, and he squeezed Mary's hand in his. "Then, if you're feeling guilty," he turned to those pale pink eyes, and Mary found herself entranced by the way his eyes almost seemed to glow red under the gray-white sun of November, "I'll show you around."

...

When Seto had said that he would show her around, she had expected him to show her where the local grocery stores or places for basic necessities were, or perhaps where how the train station worked.

Not this.

"It's beautiful, isn't it?"

He smiled at her, the warmth of his hand burning into hers, as they stood in front of her a homely little house with a small-town middle school across the road.

Mary could not move.

 _Please not this._

There was the little peeling of the white washed house on the edge, the tidy windows lined with ivy and dark green leaves, and warm blood dripping on the doorstep when she had walked in that day, her little beat up backpack and the cookies all on the floor.

 _"Mommy," she wailed, tears falling on her mother's pale face, and her fingers desperately searched for a hint of warmth as tears spilled onto her mother's eyelids. "Mommy, what's wrong, wake up-"_

"I really liked the forest around here, and I used to go to the school around here. It's a little out of town, but-"

Seto's voice tuned out of her ears as it came back, too fast, too soon, and the walls she had pretended to protect around her heart blew down, one by one, as she stared, straight ahead, at the homely little doorstep that she had stepped up everyday, beaming.

 _"I'm home!"_

Her mother was dead on the floor.

The tears didn't start until Seto's smile turned to her, and his eyes widened and he exclaimed, "Mary—" but it didn't matter because her mother was dead and they couldn't make flower crowns anymore and she would never come home and smell her newly baked cookies again. Her mother seemed to wave and smile at her from the doorstep.

 _"Welcome back!"_

She tried to wave back, but her eyelids were trembling too heavily with tears, and she looked down at the asphalt, and it blurred into a watery gray as the tears fell, and Seto's hand tightened around hers.

Mary turned her head to apologize to Seto, and her mouth opened and closed uselessly, lips trembling. She tried to laugh for the green and black blur, but then it came out, choked with tears, and her legs were shaking so badly, and Mary shut her eyes, tight, as the sobs screamed out of her throat.

The tears fell fast and hot, and her heart ached so badly that she wanted to rip it out of her chest. Her nose was running, and her hand went up, shaking, to wipe it, but all she could think of was her mother's scent on her dress, and she crawled into a ball, the pavement scraping her arms.

The sobs that ripped themselves out of Mary's mouth as she had turned to him tore at Seto's heart, and he wrapped his arms around Mary's shuddering body as she drew in shaky breath after shaky breath, pulling her close, and hushed her softly, rocking her back and forth. "It's ok," he soothed her, and buried his own tears into the top of Mary's soft white hair. "It's ok."

Mary screamed and cried and clung at his shirt with fingers that trembled as incoherent sobs choked out of the back of her too-dry throat. "Mom," she managed, before the words dissolved into tears again, and Seto simply held her closer and rubbed circles into her back. "I know," he whispered into her hair, and he closed his own eyes tight, and her hair wafted the scent of chamomile into the tears welling into his own eyes. "I know."

She hiccupped, and the tears were burning in her eyes, and she closed out the picture of the white little house and the green vines along the white plaster, and cried inside Seto's warm arms until the day turned to dusk.

…

Her eyes were red and puffy, and her mouth was scratchy and dry from screaming for hours.

Seto hoisted up her legs between his arms as they wordlessly trudged up the hill, people passing them by in the low murmur of the busy evening.

They had not spoken once since she had stopped sobbing and sniffling into Seto's front shirt, and he had simply bent his back for her to climb on, and she did so, rubbing her eyes tiredly and wiping her nose away, pink eyes puffy.

His back was warm. She leaned against it, comfortingly, and half-liddedly watched the shoes bustle by on the cement; high heels clicking and shined black shoes shining in the low horizon. Seto waited as she rubbed her face into his hood, and her chamomile breath fanned against the back of his head, sullen and exhausted, then continued their journey upwards.

"Do you want to take the train?" his voice was very soft, and Mary almost started crying again as she thought of his golden eyes, and shook her head, rubbing away the tears with her palms before Seto could see them again, almost feeling embarrassed. Her pink eyes looked away from the dark locks curling around the nape of his neck, and she leaned against his shoulder, her white locks seeming to pull her down. "No."

Seto didn't protest, and they continued their slow journey in the setting sun, a too-tall boy in a green coverall and a small girl with white hair on his back, rubbing her pink eyes of tears. He stopped her at a small grocery store, and he exited with grocery bags hanging from his hands, and he bent down for her to get on again, and she obliged.

"Do you miss it?" His voice was so gentle, and Mary, still tender from the incident, simply buried her tears into his shoulder, and had to steady her breathing for a bit before responding.

"Yes." She rubbed her face into the warm green, and took in a deep breath of wood and the distinct aroma of coffee. His golden eyes flitted towards her, and she gazed back, too tired to feel any shame or have the decency to look away. "When did it happen?"

Mary opened her dry mouth and breathed a cloud of white into the wintry air. "Late September."

Seto waited, and she looked away, her pink eyes swimming, then resolving again. "She… was killed. Hit on the head." She had to swallow once or twice after that, and managed a thick, "They took the cookies," then another swallow, and Seto himself looked like he wanted to cry, "and I said that I wanted to hang out with my friends afterschool—"

She breathed in forcefully, and hid her face behind a sheet of curly white, her hands coming up behind the curtain to scrub at her eyes. He walked on in silence, and listened to the little girl made of china and porcelain and cute bunny prints on mugs in convenience stores cry silently over her dead mother.

The setting sun set the town in a melancholic color, orange and purple and the exact rosy red color of the eyes of the girl on his back colored their little ratty apartment the color of the memories she had cried out that day. He set her down, and helped her up the stairs, and neither felt ashamed when they held each other's hands tightly as they walked, numbly and other-worldly, up the stairs. He would pause as she stopped once in a while to rub her nose, then their feet would continue clanking up the metal steps.

He had to be the first to let go, gently prying off her hand from his, and she had stepped away, her white locks swaying and glowing melancholic yellow and orange and rosy pink.

"Move in with us."

The words had fled, desperate, from his lips, and she stopped, and he could see that she was crying again. She sniffled again, and rubbed her eyes with her arms, but her rosebud lips mouthed, wordlessly, the bottom lips trembling in the falling leaves of December, "Ok."

A/N: You could probably tell where I veered way off track, but hEY I wanted piggy back rides and I will have them shshshshshshsh I can see you judging me.


	6. everywhere she goes, she can't sleep

Seto was beginning to think this was not as good of an idea as he had thought.

It wasn't like there was a problem with any of them with her moving in—in fact, she had already been coming over so much that they had already stocked in little things like tea and her favorite snacks for when she came over in the morning, and had to regulate the movies that they had in the shelves when Mary would come over some nights and they would all watch a movie together, Kido heating up popcorn in the light of the kitchen in the next room.

No, it was the beds.

"Kido, please?" he could barely form it into a question out of his sleep-deprived lips, his usually bright molten eyes dulled to a pale shade of yellow. Kano pranced behind him, with a red cape on his back as he flew up and down the hallway, the blanket streaming.

Lack of sleep glazing her own black pupils, she jutted her thumb towards a lump of white wrapped in generous amounts of multicolored blankets. "She's sleeping," Kido clarified, ruffling the back of her head with a hand, and Seto, feeling somewhat hysterical, protested, "Kido—" but Kido held up a hand and repeated, a little firmer, "She's sleeping," and slammed the door.

He trudged back to his own room, and flopped onto the bed, Kano still cackling insanely with his eyes flashing red to cover up the bags above his own cat-like grin.

They were not rich, that was for sure, and even when looking into Mary's pleading rosy eyes, they could barely scrape across enough to get by, much less buy a new bed for their new member. He had simply ruffled her head and assured her that it would be fine, and that she could sleep with Kido for now (the sofa downstairs had all kinds of unearthly liquids and materials dumped onto it, courtesy of Kano, and Kido swore that she absolutely would not let Mary or anyone else sleep on that god-forsaken place), but then came across the problem of Mary taking up all of the blankets and depriving Kido of sleep in general.

Kano had become insufferable inside his own room, and Seto would plead with Kido to no success. Kano, strangely, had stayed around more than usual when their new neighbor had moved into their own apartment, much to everyone's inconvenience, and he had dragged off Kido and Mary to take a bath with him after Seto's after-work bath to "make sure the brave boy doesn't get a little _too_ brave," he had winked at him, and Seto had flustered, red-faced, until he realized that Kano was trying to take a bath with _Kido_ and that in itself was dangerous to their repair costs and health costs, much less their new bed, and more importantly, " _Mary,"_ he had stressed as he bolted up the stairs, and rattled at the doorknob uselessly as the bloodshed ensued.

He buried his face into his pillow, and blew his hair out of his face hopelessly, watching Kano's figure occasionally flying across the doorway, red blanket streaming.

Kano had made a point of using the color red in his everyday activities in the house, he had noticed, and though he had dismissed Kano's grin as 'odd' (everything about Kano was off, it was normal), his eyes, when normal, would always raise his eyebrows at him and then flick his gaze to Mary, as if trying to say something. Seto rolled onto his side, and he could feel the blanket wrap tight around his ankles, cutting off his circulation. "I can't sleep," he said into the night air, more of a sigh than actual words, and Kano's cape fluttered past the doorway again. He sat there for a while, then reached over and turned off the light, sitting facedown into his pillow.

…

"She's sleeping."

Mary faced the wall, rosy eyes staring at the plaster peeling on the walls, as Seto pleaded, strained, with Kido at the doorway. "Kido—"

Mary shut out the noises and her hair rustled around her as she crawled further into the haven of multicolored blankets. She was being an inconvenience. They never said it to her face, and they assured her, but their strained smiles and sluggish movements and quiet conversations could not fool even her. Kido said something else, then slammed the door, the floor creaking as she sat on a chair. Mary held in a sniff, the tears silently wetting her hair, and she could hear Kano's insane giggling down the hallway. Seto's voice mumbled, almost right next to her, through the paper-thin walls, "I can't sleep," and it dwindled into a click of a light. Kano's voice faded and intensified in loops, and Mary tried to shut out the tears, the feelings, the sound of Kido's sigh, of Seto's silent complaint. "I can't sleep either," a voice childishly whined in her head, and she banished it away. She was not a child anymore, she admonished herself. Her mother was not going to pat her head and say it was going to go away, and she couldn't expect her neighbors to either. She was on her own in this world.

The truth was numb, and Mary could not quite seem to feel anything at all. _I'm alone in this world._ She repeated it, and all she could feel was a dim ache in her chest. She was too tired, now, to think, to care. Did her mother ever pat her head like that? Did she even remember anymore? Mary turned, closing her eyes into the heat of the blankets. Was she a bad daughter for forgetting the feel of her own mother's hand?

She closed her eyes and dreamt a restless sleep, and someone patted her head inside of the whitewashed house as she sobbed over her stone cold mother on the floor. They ruffled her hair and held her close when she blew her nose into their green coverall. She remembered this hand; she tried to tell the stranger, tears blurring away his face, but not her own mother's, who was dead on the floor? What was wrong with her? They smiled warmly and hugged her close, the aroma of the coffee and wood surrounding her. "You didn't forget," they reminded her, and it all made sense. His eyes were golden, and looking at them warmed her naturally cool skin to the gentle hues of summer. "Sleep," he comforted her, and she woke up.

Kido was gone, and she was alone in the gently moonlit room. The silver streamed in between the blinds and wound onto her cream-colored hair like snakes. Her eyes slid to the digital red of the alarm clock on their stand—it was a foreign word, she tasted, 'their'—and it read a blinking 3 AM. The window was cracked open, the lace curtains swaying in the breeze, and Mary held out a hand into the silvery moonlight, the cold white almost glowing on her already pale skin, and goose bumps prickled her skin.

It was cold, she thought, plainly, and sat up, peeling off the blankets wrapped around her body like a caterpillar, and even when she got up, it was exactly as cold as it was before, but she had already expected that. She sat, shivering in her thin pale blue nightgown, almost as soft and thin and pale as the moonlight itself, and thought of black sneakers and golden summery eyes. She got up, and, as an afterthought, dragged along the trail of blankets, because maybe even _his_ golden summery eyes got cold sometimes too.

…

Seto rolled over, and there was a small girl in white and pale blue fluttering around her knees as she clambered onto the bed. He stared at her, and she gazed back up with him with her rosy eyes gleaming in the moonlight, and her feet shuffled around at the bottom of the bed before pulling up a pile of multicolored blankets, and she draped it over the both of them, her unruly curls snuggling close.

"In case you're cold," she mumbled, the tip of her nose pink as it nuzzled into his nightshirt, and Seto promised, "Not while you're here," and it was true, he knew that when his mind came around fully he would be as red as a tomato, but his hand held the messy white close to his chest, and the warm chamomile of her breath sighed in contentment against his bare collarbone. He hardly noticed, his eyes were already closing, but Mary's words were the warmest thing when she breathed out a sweet, "Goodnight, Seto," before dropping off to sleep.


	7. everywhere they go, they are happy

When Kido looked up to the bare branches of December, there was Mary's pink nose pressed up against the glass, moisture fogging up the panes as her eyes shone unseasonably bright in the reflection of white.

The rumble of a moving van from behind surprised her, and she hastened up the stairs, the luggage rattling as her boots plodded up. She really didn't know how Seto managed to even go up and down the stairs to work, these days, the steps were treacherously slippery, and her feet wobbled at the top.

Puffing white at the top, she peered wanly down at the moving van, and they seemed to be hauling in boxes upon boxes of shiny red aluminum cans. They seemed to be getting a lot of neighbors after Mary had come, and two had already come in- one on the bottom floor, and the other two doors next to them. Kido's head lowered to try to get a peek inside, but as soon as she thought she could make something out, Seto had opened the door and welcomed her in.

"New neighbors?" Kido nodded at Seto's inquisitive eyes, and she smiled, if not a little grimly, as she dropped the grocery bags onto the kitchen counter.

"Kano's not going to be pleased."

...

"The queen wants to go shopping," Kano yawned, and Mary's head behind the newest BL book Kano had managed to procure for her stiffened a little. "D...No, I don't!" Seto simply laughed from the kitchen, pouring a cup of tea for Mary and one of coffee for himself.

"Sure," he took a sip and began to pull on a winter jacket, and Mary hid her face further into the book, flustering. "B-But..." she tried, stumbling over her words, "But you have work!"

He shrugged the words off, boots in one hand already, and he flashed a grin at her as his hands wound a scarf around his neck. Kano laughed and carelessly laid his feet onto the other side of the sofa, his eyes never moving from his magazine, and he waved his hand at Seto's boots. "I don't have work, so I'm exempt."

Kido appeared next to him on the couch, to the surprised squeak of Mary, and smacked him upside the head with the magazine. "We're going," she ordered, black pupils hard as usual, and he winced, rubbing the back of his head. Her eyes moved to Mary, and she hurriedly hid her white head back behind the smutty cover. Seto emerged at the doorway, wrapped in a generous amount of jackets and a thick winter hat on his head, the winter boots that Mary so abhorred wearing fitting somehow endearingly on him.

He pulled down the scarf, cheeks flushed, and his smile was as summery as ever under a thick green turtleneck. "Ready?" They watched Mary fidget, the tips of her ears red from behind the flaps of the book, and after a long wait, she stuttered, shyly, "Thank you."

A hint of what could've been called a smile cracked at Kido's face, and she helped the small albino girl up. "Well," her eyes briefly darted to Kano, and he gave out a long sigh before shoving his hands (and the magazine) into his pockets, a cat-like grin flashing across his features. "I don't mind either. Besides," he quipped with a mischevious grin, "I might be able to get that game that Kido said she would get me for Christm-ugh!"

Kido foot met his stomach, and she dragged both of them to the door, giving Seto a placid look then a small smile. "Let's go."

...

"What's this?"

Mary curiously held up a lacy bra ("Not this again-" Kido struck it to the other side of the store with Kano red handed along with it. "How do you even get lacy bras in the vegetable section?"), and Seto smiled nervously, arms full of trinkets that they had found and decidedly kept, Kido eyeing the baskets apprehensively, sifting through them every once in a while whenever Kano dropped something in.

"Well," Seto started, a little flushed as Mary's rosy eyes questioningly landed on him, "when a man and a woman love each other very much-"

"I found it!" Kano burst in with a 20 foot pine tree in tow, a huge grin on his face. "Seto, help me get it into the basket before Danchou sees it-"

Kido got there first, and he was thrown face-first into a basket of freshly picked grade A tomatoes. Mary picked up a roll of cheese and threw it into the basket- "In case your bike gets a flat tire!" she beamed at Seto- and a newly married couple was watching them apprehensively, whispering, from the potato section.

Kido simply spat and eyed the back of the blond's black and white (and tomatoed, now) spotted hoodie, and coldly observed the 20 foot pine at her feet. Seto ran up to her, 2 rolls of cheese ("Because sometimes both tires blow out at once," Seto had resolved, and Mary approved a second roll to be added to the mix) and a dozen blow-up balloons and a 6 pack of red and black diet cola stacked on at least a dozen lacy skirts and bras with Christmas specials holiday card prints for 'Your beloved daughter,' in his arms inside a grocery mart plastic basket.

"Kido!" he called, waving his hand brightly, and Mary's eyes shone as she proudly held up a pair of lingerie in the middle of the vegetable section. The married couple was definitely staring at them weirdly now, and they had begun to creep away into the dairy section, refusing to meet any of their eyes.

"Do I really want to be associated with these people?" Kido sweat.

Mary ran up to her, tugging on her sleeve excitedly as she held the panties into Kido's face. "Isn't it cute?" her rosy eyes shone in excitement, her feet bouncing up and down a little, and she giggled a little. "I thought it would look really cute on you, Kido, the lace is cute but it shows off a cool kind of aura! I thought it would be nice ribbon for you."

'She thought it was a ribbon,' Kido considered in horror, and a family of 5 had arrived at the vegetable section and had turned around and quickly left the scene.

"Er," Mary's excited rosy eyes were downturned now, and she dug her toe into the tiles, "Seto told me that it'll be Christmas soon," her white curls bounced up, and she beamed at her, "and Christmas was a time of giving, so I thought, 'Kido will love it!' And Kano said that you liked to wear these kinds of things a lot, too, so..."

She trailed off at the look on Kido's face, and her arms went slightly down. "You... don't like-"

Kido snatched the panties out of Mary's hands before she could finish and forced on a bright grin, ruffling her white head. "No, no no no, you're right, I love it! You were right, I do like to...wear this kind of... stuff... all the time!"

Mary's eyes brightened, and she resisted the urge to look at the black and white jacket trembling with laughter in the tomato section, and she gently ruffled her head again, turning her lips into what she hoped was the kind of reassuring smile that Seto always would give her. "So you don't need to worry, ok?"

She nodded obediently, and Seto beamed at her as well, though she was sure it wasn't out of mockery for her choice of clothing ("I wear this kind of stuff all the time!" Kido felt like screaming and promised to check Kano's recordings later in the day), and he slapped her back. "If you're really into that kind of stuff," he supplied, brightly, "I can get you one too-"

Kido shot him a smiling glare when Mary wasn't looking, and he shut up. "Well," he rifled through the basket, and, an item hanging on the tree catching his eye, he tossed that into the basket as well. "I think we're mostly done here!"

Kido let out an exhausted sigh and dragged Kano out of the pile, Mary bouncing back behind Seto, checking that their list was all good. Kido smiled strainedly and ran a hand through her hair, and hissed through her teeth at the fondly smiling Seto staring at Mary, "What did you _put_ on there? We're taking so long!"

Seto tapped his chin, eyebrows furrowing together, then whispered back, a little sheepish grin tugging at his lips, "I, uh, just put on a lot of stuff I thought Mary'd be into. We don't really have anything to buy?"

Kido was on the edge of kicking Seto into the tomato section too before Mary popped up with a pair of sunglasses and then they popped that into the basket, too. She looked uncertainly back at the 'unconscious' Kano who was playing games on his phone, and stopped them.

"I'll be back soon!" her voice disappeared at the corner, and when she came back, Kano looked up from his phone, grin wide. "I knew you could do it, Mary!" he cheered her, and she stared pleadingly at Kido, her arms wrapped around a 20 foot long pine tree. "I'm not sure if we can fit this into the cart," her voice wavered uncertainly, and Seto smiled and took the trunk of the tree and went to grab a new grocery basket.

Kido facepalmed.

...

"You know, I think we may have overestimated the size of this tree," Kano laughed nervously, half of the tree bowing over the kitchen entrance, ornaments hanging down the edges of the branches.

"You _think?"_ Kano wisely stayed far away from Kido's punching range, his arms and face covered in bruises. "But we can't return it now," he quickly backed away, laughing nervously, hands up, as Kido approached, "I mean, this was Mary's Christmas present to me and all, she dragged it all the way through the vegetable and the dairy section so it could come here to our little humble apartment- ow ow ow-"

Seto took a glance to the albino girl, who was proudly admiring where she had placed the star on the top of the tree (which bending to the floor, so at least she didn't have any trouble reaching there), and he nudged her. Her rosy eyes looked up at him, soft and an unseasonable rose in the white of December.

"How's your first Christmas?" he asked her, quietly, and the rosy reds only hesitated a moment before beaming up at him. Her hand unexpectedly grabbed his and squeezed it, turning his face red inside out.

"I love it."

A/N: because it's christmas and who needs plot advancement when it's christmas i just want bonding and 20 foot trees in my heart ok


End file.
